I joined Tufts International Development’s Ecuador team during the first semester of my freshman year. I was instantly drawn to the team’s e-book program, which helps to improve children’s welfare through a technology-based educational project. I believed that working on this project would give me experience with a non-governmental organization, which was too appealing to pass up, and that is without even considering that the project is based in my home country.
We visited Ecuador as a team in August of 2019, and I was able to spend a couple of weeks in a mountainous region of Ecuador, where I have rarely spent any time. I grew up in Guayaquil (a major coastal city in Ecuador) and moved to the US shortly before I started at Tufts. The fact that I was able to communicate effortlessly with the people in this new region, while simultaneously learning about a different side of Ecuadorian culture was very impactful for me.
